My quest to watch every movie and TV show Bruce Lee has appeared in is slowly nearing its end. In terms of time commitment, The Green Hornet is the longest item.
The Hornet is a standalone hero that doesn’t belong to any of the big superhero universes, like Marvel or DC. In fact, he predates many of them. Created for a radio show in the 1930s, the Hornet, a masked crime fighter pretending to be a criminal, is actually Britt Reid, wealthy heir to a media empire built around The Daily Sentinel, a newspaper founded by his father. Sound familiar? Not only is the Hornet’s background similar to Batman, he, too, has a sidekick: His butler, chauffeur, and loyal fist in times of need, Kato. For the 1966 TV show, Bruce Lee got the role.
Lee was a leading man through and through—but in show business as in life, you don’t start as the CEO. The show was Lee’s first appearance in front of American audiences, and even though he was relegated to the sidelines for most of his screen time, he made the most of every scene he was in. In non-fighting moments, Kato usually hangs around in the background while Reid talks to the Attorney General. He has the occasional one-liner but little meaningful dialogue.
Lee, of course, tried to maximize his opportunity. Not only did he get to show Kung Fu to an American audience for the first time, he also sought to demonstrate his acting skills. At one point, he wrote a friendly, inquisitive letter to the producer describing Kato as an “‘active partner’ of the Green Hornet and not a ‘mute follower.'” In order to better express this partnership, Lee suggested that “at least an occasional dialogue would certainly make me ‘feel’ more at home with the fellow players.” He was thinking about his career, no doubt, but he also wanted to improve the show—and he was right.
In the final episodes of the show’s 26-unit run, Kato becomes more involved, and so do the other characters, like Lenore Case, Reid’s secretary. It makes for a much more dynamic cast and experience. Now, it’s a group effort, not merely the Hornet, played by Van Williams, charging in with a mastermind plan no one else knows about.
The extra opportunities surely helped set up Lee for his later success—not that Kato wasn’t already the most popular character on the show, thanks to his cool moves—but it was all built on being, first and foremost, a world-class sidekick—because that’s what Lee was hired to do.
Lee addressed that, too, in his letter:
“Simplicity—to express the utmost in the minimum of lines and energy—is the goal of gung fu, and acting is not too much different. Since the first episode, I’ve gained actual experience. I’ve learned to be ‘simply human’ without unnecessary striving. […] However, alone standing there apart from the fellow players listening, is itself simplicity stripped to the very end. That requires considerable skill because it is simple! […] It does take a real pro to just stand there in big close-ups. I’ve learned the effectiveness of simplicity, but in order to cultivate simplicity, something to say or do is necessary.”
You can see Bruce’s mastery of simplicity especially in those scenes when he hasn’t got much to do. His facial expression while Reid takes a phone call. The way he pronounces and emphasizes words in his short lines. How he looks back at the Hornet over the rear view mirror while driving their “rolling arsenal,” “the Black Beauty,” a pitch-black 1966 Chrysler Imperial sedan.
If Lee hadn’t done all the little things perfectly, his additional efforts to lead—drafting new script ideas for the show, suggesting directions for fight scenes, requesting more dialogue—wouldn’t have amounted to anything. But since he did his actual job so well, people eventually trusted him to do more. Lee wasn’t given a huge amount of rope to work with, but it was enough.
When the show ended after just one season despite everyone’s best efforts, one of Lee’s next gigs was a four-episode stint on Longstreet, a show about the eponymous detective seeking revenge for his wife’s murder. The catch? Longstreet is blind, an accident from the same bomb that killed his wife. Early in the show, some bad guys rough him up, and Lee swoops in and saves the day. Then, Lee’s character becomes his teacher—and in that show, despite appearing for only 45 minutes total, Lee was allowed to dispense much more of his actual Kung Fu and philosophical knowledge. He even explains Jeet Kune Do, his own martial arts philosophy—all on public television in the 1960s! This opportunity found Lee thanks to the work he did as Kato on The Green Hornet.
Is it a time to follow, or a time to lead? Being a good follower, a strong supporting actor, is its own kind of leadership—and it provides room to do, show, and ask for more. The strongest sidekick eventually becomes the hero. So be the best sidekick you can be! Sooner or later, your time will come.
